I’ll be curious to see if anyone recommends any offline solutions for that use case. I did a Swann system awhile back, and its proprietary software sucked.

I’m thinking of eventually converting to either doing another Synology NAS dedicated to its own cam functionality or adding cams to my Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro. Those are both expensive, and out of these three, two of them only work with their own cameras, and their own cameras only work with their software (I think).

On the other hand, Arlo has been convenient and less expensive. It’s internet-connected, but for exterior cams, I don’t have any problem with that. I don’t recall if they have a free plan, so the cost could eventually add up in the long run, but it would take 5 years of a $30 subscription to add up to about $2k.

My limited personal experience makes me think the service-based providers (Arlo, Nest, SimpliSafe) have the most incentive (recurring revenue) to make their products easy, and they should stay more fresh with improvements and fixes. On the other hand, each time I mess with the old closed Swann system, it feels harder to find compatible access. It has a web UI that’s stuck on some old browser plugin that doesn’t meet most browsers’ security requirements, and I haven’t found an app that works on my latest Android. They have no incentive to make that old hardware stay good, and every incentive to get me to buy another system.

So that’s why I would only look for a mainstream, service-based system for a family member for whom I need it to “just work”. I got my parents Arlo, and they send me wildlife clips once in a while. I also got them a Logitech Harmony back when those were cool, and they kept losing it and, somehow, the sub for their sound bar, reverting to the basic-assed TV speakers because for some reason the better sound system controlled seamlessly both via HDMI and with a universal remote was still too complicated. The more fiddly Swann cameras would have just been a dust heater if they didn’t rip it out and toss it.